IBM survey says CMOs are data challenged -- but is data what matters?

Most chief marketing officers are unprepared for the amount of data they'll soon have to contend with, according to a study by IBM. But the job of the CMO is first and foremost to understand the customer, meaning that the coming wave of business data is only as valuable as the customer insights it produces, argues Paul Magnone. "The savvy CMO, who is prepared for the data explosion, is a curator of the customer conversation and will recognize the progression that data must be structured into information which leads to insights and then inspires action on the part of their customers," he writes.